Movies At Dog Farm Trailer Park: Volume 1, December 2012

     This is just a quick round-up of recently viewed movies, as well as a handful of titles I'm looking forward to.  Click on any title for a link to the pertinent trailer.  Click thumbnails to enlarge pics.

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     I watched Silent Night (2012) this week - a very loose remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) -  and I really wasn't quite sure what to make of it.  It was more visually ambitious than I expected.  In fact, it was often quite stylish.  Care was taken.

     Unfortunately, I believe it was let down by a script that could have used another pass.  Mostly just a shrug for me.  Here's to hoping that I'll finally find my perennial Christmas horror movie when I watch Rare Exports (2010) on Christmas Day.

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     Though I've seen a handful of exceptionally good genre movies recently - Some Guy Who Kills People (2011), Excision (2012), The Bay (2012) - I haven't really been looking forward to any upcoming releases. Well, that all changed today.

     The first official trailer for Guillermo del Toro's upcoming massive monsters versus massive robots epic Pacific Rim (2013) hit the Internet on December 12th, and I somehow didn't bumble across it until today.  Oh.  My.  God.  July can't get here soon enough.  I was bummed when del Toro's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness fell apart, but it looks like he's still getting his Cthulhu on with these gigantic horrors from the depths of the Pacific.

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     I'm also super excited about American Mary (2012).  Starring Katherine Isabelle (the Ginger Snaps trilogy), this Canadian production wowed audiences at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.  It premieres theatrically in the U.K. on 1/11/13 with a U.K. disc release following on 1/21/13.  Hopefully, this means we can expect a North American release soon thereafter.  I'm going to do my damnedest to procure a copy of this as soon as possible, and I'll be sure to report back.

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     Haters are gonna hate, but I've been convinced ever since the release of House of 1000 Corpses (2003) that director Rob Zombie has at least one more brilliant movie in him.  I think The Lords of Salem (2012) might be that movie.  It releases 4/26/13.

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     Finally, I read today that director Andreas Marschall's giallo homage Masks (2011) has been procured by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for imminent North American distribution.  I'd never even heard of this one before today, but the trailer makes it look like it could be the best giallo that Dario Argento never directed. 

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Ho-Ho-Horrible Christmas Viewing

                                    

Rare Exports - what I'll be watching Christmas day.

     I'm a grinch.  A lack of religious conviction and a lifetime of working in retail just renders the holidays a trial.  If you dig the holidays, great.  Don't let me ruin it for you.  If you're like me, though, and you'd rather just rip December from your calendar, click here for The Most Horrible Christmas Story Ever Told.  It brings an otherwise briskly paced narrative to a screeching halt, and it feels like it was imported in its entirety from an altogether different movie.  I respect the commitment to the gag.  Now that we're all in the holiday spirit, allow me to recommend a few alternative viewing options for the holiday impaired. . .

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                        Black Christmas (1974)

     John Carpenter's Halloween gets most of the credit for creating the slasher movie template, but  Black Christmas is the real progenitor of the holiday themed body count movie.  A cast of vaguely familiar faces (John Saxon, Margot Kidder) adds interest for the first-time viewer, and the murderer's sometimes eclectic means of dispatch (death by unicorn!?!) keeps things interesting.  Director Bob Clark was later responsible for A Christmas Story, one of the only "straight" Christmas movies I can stand to watch.  The two movies back-to-back make for a truly schizo double feature.

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          Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

     Pulled from theatrical distribution in less than two weeks thanks to a very vocal contingent of concerned mothers, Silent Night, Deadly Night is so unashamedly skeezy that one wonders how the protesters took it seriously enough to get agitated.  A homicidal head case in a Santa suit returns to the orphanage he was raised in with his axe a swingin' to wreak vengeance on the hard-assed nuns who raised him.  Eighties horror movie stalwart Linnea Quigley finds herself on the receiving end of a death by antlers in one notably novel burst of violence.  I'm proud to say I caught this one on the big screen during its brief theatrical run.  You'll want to take a shower after viewing, but that shame won't wash off.
     A very promising loose remake entitled simply Silent Night makes its way to DVD/BD on December 4.  I couldn't embed the trailer, so check the link here.

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Jack Frost (1996)

     Speaking of showers . . . a mutant killer snowman rapes Shannon Elizabeth with a carrot - seriously, don't you feel like you need to see that?  Unremittingly dumb and filled with groan inducing one-liners, it's so cheesy that it's impossible to not have fun with it.  The evil Frosty ultimately gets his comeuppance in the guise of a truck bed full of antifreeze.  I can't make this stuff up. 


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                              Inside (2007)

     A recently widowed expectant mother finds herself the target of a particularly brutal home invasion on Christmas Eve.  The perpetrator (a stunningly villainous Beatrice Dalle) is determined to take her unborn child from her the hard way.  It's every bit as cheery as it sounds, but if you have the stomach for it, Inside is an undeniably effective French shocker that ranks as one of my favorite genre movies of the last decade.  Be warned, though, this is rough going.  Expectant mothers, in particular, should probably steer clear of this one.  It makes me squirm, and I'm neither sensitive nor pregnant.

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     As for me, I'll be watching Rare Exports (2010) this Christmas for the first time.  I hear good things.  If the picture at the top of the post piqued your interest, it's available on both disc and video-on-demand.  If you have any alternative viewing favorites of your own, please share in the Comments section below.  God bless us, every one - even those of us who can't stand the holidays!